The nation-wide opioid epidemic is getting worse. According to Florida's Department of Law Enforcement, there were nearly 6,000 opioid-related deaths in our state in 2016--a 35 percent increase from 2015. While there is no single solution, Naples' David Lawrence Center is using a grant to use a different approach to combat the problem.

January is Human Trafficking Awareness Month. In Florida – which has the third-highest number of trafficking reports of any state – the response includes training for health care professionals, who often encounter victims in their work but miss the signs.

The Florida House wants to target $50 million toward opioid treatment and prevention in the upcoming year and spend about $1 million on a statewide prescription-drug database, the top House health-care budget writer said Tuesday.

The Florida House is ready to take up two familiar healthcare reform measures Wednesday. Supporters say both bills will make care more accessible and more affordable. The plans face uphill battles in the Senate.

The Florida Senate on Wednesday is expected to take up a bill that would set aside $100 million a year for the Florida Forever program and a proposal that would place a statue of civil rights leader and educator Mary McLeod Bethune in the U.S. Capitol.

Surgeons complain it’s too restrictive for patients who undergo major heart surgery or hip replacement. Emergency room doctors gripe they don’t have the time or resources to comply. And pharmacists say it needs to be tweaked.

Florida lawmakers appear to be fast tracking a controversial bill that seeks to regulate the state’s pregnancy crisis centers. The measure that wades into the abortion debate has already passed the Florida House and is now heading to the Senate floor.

A particularly bad flu virus is burning through Florida and health officials say people can still protect themselves—and others.

“Getting vaccinated can prevent flu in yourself, but it also may prevent flu in people who you are not infecting,” says Dr. Brendan Flannery, an epidemiologist with the influenza division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Especially for young children or people who are at high risk of flu, it's very important that people around them are vaccinated.”

The number of legal immigrants from Latin American nations who access public health services and enroll in federally subsidized insurance plans has dipped substantially since President Donald Trump took office, many of them fearing their information could be used to identify and deport relatives living in the U.S. illegally, according to health advocates across the country.

A New York-based company has purchased a Central Florida pot operation for $43 million in cash and stock, amid expectations that the industry will explode following the voter-approved legalization of medical marijuana more than a year ago.

Pharmacists would be required to advise people about the costs of prescriptions and whether the retail prices of drugs are lower than cost-sharing requirements imposed by insurers or HMOs, under a bill approved unanimously Wednesday by a House health-care panel.